The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 10

At the lower ranks, soulprints were pretty straightforward. They did basic things, usually ineffectively compared to their stronger counterparts, and most people never really spent the time to learn how to get the most out of them. There was something to be said for that logic, as the truth of almost all F-ranked soulprints—not to mention E- and D-ranked—was that their destiny was to be broken down into parts to modify other, better soulprints.

In this case, that meant a funny little E-ranked soulprint called Counter Heal was the end result of Sorin’s work. It inherited some of Rejuvenation’s strange quirks in that it did nothing until Sorin actually got hurt, then it automatically triggered an anima burst to repair the injury. The tradeoff to being unable to use it freely was that it was both an extremely potent heal for its rank and a cost-effective one.

It was nearly perfect for solo work, with the only real drawback being that in the unfortunate event that he was injured so badly Counter Heal couldn’t bring him back to full health in a single burst, he couldn’t manually trigger the effect a second time. What he could do, however, was free cast an F-rank healing spell after the fight was over.

The team had abandoned the camp with the broken seven-tower sign soon after Sorin had returned and struck out deeper into the desert. It turned out that, without Heat Resistance, they’d found it easier to travel and fight at night. The lack of light wasn’t much of a problem between Rue’s Aura Sense and Nemari’s ability to generate plenty of fire if needed.

With two E-ranked soulprints boosting his endurance, Sorin had no problem pulling an all-nighter. Even just being in his young-again body probably would have been enough, but this way, he stayed at peak condition. A tired climber made mistakes, and mistakes got people killed.

“We’re about… ten or so miles from our destination, I think,” he said when they stopped for a break. The plan was simple. The whole team was heading into an underground cavern complex that, according to Calder, was commonly avoided despite being relatively easy to reach. The ability to see in the dark wasn’t common at low levels, and nobody really liked fighting ambush predators in the first place.

The fact that those predators were all spiders was the final nail for most climbers. There were easier and safer places to farm anima, but Sorin’s team was still prioritizing privacy. Nemari could provide light and area damage, Rue could keep track of incoming enemies, and Odric… Well, he’d probably be relegated to stomping on things that got too close.

As for Sorin, he’d be leaving the team behind to descend deeper, where the real prize waited. In theory, there were giant spiders down in the depths, monsters to rival the massive scorpions that sometimes dug their way up to the surface, and in far greater numbers. It was practically the perfect farming spot for him.

Or at least it would be if I could rely on Liminal Gateway without having to worry about interference.

“Too bad we couldn’t go see your new friends,” Rue teased.

“It would have been nice to get an early look at the guardian before we fight it,” Nemari agreed in the exact same tone.

“It’s not too late for you two to walk back. I’m sure you’ll make it in time if you hurry,” Sorin said dryly.

“No, no. Imagine the disappointment on Calder’s face if we showed up without you.”

He’d caught his own team up on the one he’d come across out in the desert. Nemari and Rue had both latched onto the wind mage’s behavior and started asking for clarification about it. That had devolved into a debate about whether it was a case of hero worship for his rescuer or a simple crush on Calder’s part.

Sorin didn’t bother to argue with them about it. Even if one of them was right, he had absolutely no interest either way. All he cared about was how accurate the information about Floor 3 was, which he supposed he’d verify for himself over the next few hours.

They reached the caves without any real incidents. A few sand elementals got in their way, but Nemari took care of them by utilizing Water Bond on a few chunks of ice Sorin made for her. They melted quickly even without her taking control of the water, and when she sent it slapping into the little sand monsters, they quickly lost control of their manufactured bodies.

The cave itself took them a bit of work to find, mostly because the entrance was a literal hole in the ground that was half filled with sand. They might not ever have stumbled across it if not for the fact that the ground became a lot rockier to clue them in that they were in the right area, and from there it just became a game of persistence and diligence in searching.

The sand spiders that kept trying to jump on them were also a good clue.

Stolen story; please report.

The smallest were no bigger than a danir, but some of the larger ones could have hugged Sorin’s face with their long legs. None of them were overly dangerous, not to him, but Nemari got decidedly more nervous about the idea of a whole swarm attacking her. Considering what had happened with a flood of rat-shaped monsters back in the ruin on Floor 1, it wasn’t hard to see why.

For being Floor 3 monsters, however, sand spiders were pathetically weak. They wouldn’t have been out of place on Floor 1. What made them a challenge here was their numbers and their ability to swiftly dig through loose sand to pop out in random locations. Their venom was also a factor, but Odric neatly countered that, and Nemari was probably the only one in the group with poor enough defenses to be at risk anyway.

“Kind of wish we’d kept that stupid glowing necklace now,” she said as they dropped down into the hole.

“Holding the fire is good practice,” Sorin told her.

It was exactly what Flame Shaper was designed to do, but it still took a constant amount of focus to hold the fire in place. Keeping the magical torch going was a simple matter right now, but managing it during a fight was an entirely different thing.

They made it about fifty feet before the tunnel’s ceiling dipped so low that they had no choice but to crawl forward or dig out the sand. Normally, Sorin would have simply ruled the chokepoint too dangerous to risk, but against a known enemy and with the soulprints he had showing him every little thing that moved, he wasn’t too worried.

The first spiders crawled out of hiding when he was about halfway through. “Better close your eyes,” he warned his team.

Then he triggered Radiant Purge. Rue, who was the closest behind him, started swearing and scooted as far back as she could get, which wasn’t all that far with Odric right behind her. Sorin surged forward as fast as he could on his hands and knees while spiders curled up into black, crisp corpses around him. Only the ones that were still fully hidden under the sand survived for even a few seconds.

Cutting off the soulprint, Sorin said, “There are definitely a few more down there, but they don’t appear to want to come out. You should all get up closer to me. Better to be in range and feel a bit of heat than to get swarmed by the leftovers and end up bitten a hundred times.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Rue muttered. “Thanks, Od.”

Their healer finished his work on Rue, made easier by the fact that he no longer had to touch her to use his magic. Sorin waited for all of them to get up behind him before they started off again. His attention was half on the tiny vibrations he felt with Blind Sense and half on studying Counter Heal, which had tried to trigger from the damage he’d done to himself with Radiant Purge.

Must have messed up the threshold when I built it. I’ll take a look later, but… weird. I don’t generally make mistakes like that, especially not with something so simple. Could a different soulprint be interfering somehow?

The only unknown in his build was Liminal Gateway. Sorin couldn’t see how it would interact with Counter Heal at all, but he’d have to wait until he had a few minutes of safety to check in his soulspace. In the meantime, he’d do what he always did: try not to get hurt in the first place.

He had to fry another group of spiders a minute later just as the tunnel finally opened back up, causing everyone else to grumble. Radiant Purge wasn’t technically fire damage, despite feeling a lot like it, but Heat Resistance did help partially blunt the damage. Between that and simple distance, Nemari came out more or less unharmed.

Rue and Odric were not so lucky, but they both had defensive measures to help, and since the alternative was worse, they kept the complaining to a minimum. Sorin knew that they’d be missing him by the time he linked back up with them later. Nemari was the only one with good area damage, which meant she’d be in charge of killing all the tiny spiders while Rue and Odric dealt with their larger cousins.

The odds of getting a good soulprint off the tiny ones was low, but Sorin was hoping to haul in some good loot from the giant ones down below. If the area truly was rarely visited, then they’d had plenty of time to solidify their anima patterns.

The team stayed with him for a few more tunnels, but once they had a rough map of their hunting grounds—complete with a few scorch marks on the stone to serve as landmarks and point them back toward the exit—they parted ways. Sorin descended down an angled chute carved of rough stone, then worked his way down probably another hundred or so feet through descending tunnels to where there was no sand left.

The problem with being so deep was that spiders were still and patient creatures by their very nature. The monsterized version of them were invariably more aggressive, but the instinct to wait and pounce was still there. That countered Blind Sense quite well, and since there was no real air flow providing a breeze underground, he couldn’t even rely on that to get their webs moving.

Sorin knew the solution, however. He simply fired off a few ice blades, being sure to put some spin on them instead of letting them lance straight out. That was all the effort it took to light the tunnel up around him to Blind Sense. Movement came from everywhere, proving that small spiders could dig deep, too.

He fried them with Radiant Purge as he jogged forward, careful not to go too fast. He wanted them dead, not burned and pissed off behind him. It only took a minute for the tunnel to widen into a full-blown underground cavern at least a hundred feet tall. Sorin found himself about twenty feet up the wall and needing to climb in order to get down.

Of course, the massive spider, easily big enough to rival the armored scorpions up on the surface, sitting in its web in the middle of the room was a complication to that process. Strands of its webbing filled the whole room, and Sorin had no doubt that disturbing a single one would set the monster off.

That is what I’m here for, though.

The spider was still for the moment, but Sorin could still see the faint vibrations of its web shifting under its weight. It had just moved moments ago, probably turning to face the approaching noise of his run, or maybe it had caught flashes of light from Radiant Purge.

Sorin drew his sword, then fired off a salvo of five ice blades into its face.